Clinton's sewage treatment bills may send surrounding towns to court

Unless Clinton sweetens its offer, the four neighboring municipalities that send sewage to the town’s treatment plant may take their billing dispute before a judge.

Both sides are still negotiating but privately, representatives of the customer towns say they’re not optimistic a settlement can be reached. A court may have to determine what should go into the formula to create fair rates.

The plant, with a capacity of 2.3 million gallons per day, handles sewage from the town itself as well as sections of Clinton, Franklin and Union townships and High Bridge. All these wholesale customers face big rate increases this year, with a 43% rise mentioned by the Clinton Township Sewerage Authority. Nearly a quarter of the plant’s flow comes from that township.

Although several meetings have been held since December between representatives of Clinton and the other towns, little has been resolved. The CTSA discussed the dispute at length during its Dec. 5 monthly business meeting.

But Clinton Mayor Janice Kovacs on Tuesday afternoon said that in her opinion, “the meetings have been going well. Conversations are taking place. We’re sitting down and having the conversations.”

Administrator John Gregory (left) and Mayor Mark Desire at the High Bridge Council meeting Jan. 23, 2014.Terry Wright

High Bridge Borough Administrator John Gregory is particularly incensed about the billings and lack of good explanations.

Clinton charges its own sewer department “rent” for the land the treatment plant is on. It’s proposed at $390,000 this year, up from $140,000, Gregory said.

“They can’t give us any rational explanation, and to us it looks arbitrary,” he said. Gregory said he’s going to Trenton to get advice from officials in the state Division of Local Government Services, where he once worked as an auditor. He’s been poring over Clinton documents and budgets, trying to make sense of the sewer finances.

According to him and CTSA officials, while the “rent” transfer seems to be just a bookkeeping measure involving two Clinton town entities, the result is that all the outside municipalities sending sewage to Clinton end up subsidizing the town budget.

Similarly, Clinton took $275,00 from sewer funds to pay for refurbishing offices at 47 Leigh St., its building next to Town Hall at 43 Leigh, Gregory said.

Another sticking point is that the customers determined that for four years in the past — but not presently — the sewer budget included the salary and wages of a police officer. The treatment plant is on the South Branch of the Raritan River, behind the Hampton Inn and Cracker Barrel restaurant in Franklin.

The town’s fuel tanks are at the plant and so when the Clinton policemen go to gas up their patrol cars, they apparently check out the property while there.

Still another problem for the customer towns is that close to 50% of the salary of Clinton Administrator Rich Phelan is allocated to the sewer department, and 40% to the water department, leaving about 10% for the administrative part of his job, CTSA officials reported. But since Phelan doesn’t keep a log of how he allocates his time, they wonder if the allocation is fair.

Kovacs would not respond to any of the complaints, but said that “not as long as I have sat as mayor” has a policeman’s salary been in the sewer budget. She became mayor at the beginning of 2012.

The continuing negotiations “are in good faith,” she said, what’s important to her is “doing the right thing for all the customers.”

According to Gregory Watts, the CTSA attorney, “nobody can really put their finger on a service agreement, a contract between the parties” spelling out details of how the town is supposed to bill his authority.

“There is an agreement with the Borough of High Bridge, and we found we are being billed basically in accord with how they bill High Bridge,” he said.

CTSA is meeting tonight at 6:30 p.m. and plans to discuss the sewage situation, Watts reported. Its officers are at 79 Beaver Ave., Annandale. The authority normally meets on the first Thursday of the month.